What I know, what I don't know and what happens in between

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Monthly Archives: October 2011

We found the perfect beach finally, late yesterday. How you define the perfect beach tells you much about a person I think. We have visited a few beaches while on holidays. The ones in Maui were pretty, sanding and on the ocean, but they were not very wide and often allowed other people. There was the one that had great booming waves the surfers all flocked to. I saw it in a surfer movie recently and it hadn’t changed much, but the beach was poor in the ways of beach.

It seems that all beaches are viewed in comparison to one somewhere. The ones at Pensacola beach are white sand with appropriate waves and sea life. They have a few quite decent restaurants under the beach ball, but that means they are quite busy and popular. Johnson’s beach is found in a state park on a long spit of land that trails into the water of the Perdido Keys and we thought that was a pretty nice one until we ventured over the line into Alabama.

The sands of Alabama are softer and finer, more a sandy color than the white sugar sand of Florida. True there are still high-rises along the beach, but fewer in this area. Just past Floro Bama there is a small state park entrance to the beach. Soft sand and a surf you can hear from the parking lot. Sunday afternoon there were maybe 5 other vehicles in the parking lot and public bathrooms stood guard at the entrance to the beach access. Walkways guided us over the dunes and the sacred sea oats, opening a beach vista that brought my BP down a few points. The waves behaved as waves should do; roaring and cresting with a splash and an occasional boom. Jelly fish were thrown up on the beach for our inspection and the fishing line thrown out brought back silver fish within minutes. We shared the afternoon with the sandpipers and the jellies.

As the sun hit the horizon a heron arrived to see us about some fish. A perfect few hours to get me through the next frozen weeks of fall.

I think I might have been Burned Out. All I want to do is eat chocolate covered cereal and immerse myself in science fiction novels. I think that is one of the serious signs of Burnout. And I took a self-test on the interwebs and it said, “You may be at very severe risk of burnout – do something about this urgently”. Seems pretty clear.

Plus I’ve lost my sense of humour. Probably at the staff meeting where one of the pernicious, pathological personality disorders contminated the area with vitriol and malignancy.

Thing is, I am pretty sure that being aware I have it, does not translate into doing something about it. That seems to be one of the symptoms of burnout – inability to change what you are doing. The interwebs also tells me ” You may feel let down or betrayed by your organization, and may be “going through the motions” just for the money your job brings in”

I think they know where I work.

The advice online says to use this as an opportunity for personal growth. Do a SWOT analysis and develop and Action Plan.

Well here’s my analysis – too many Toxic Trolls have crawled out from under their bridges. The pathology has spread, contagion is likely, PPEs are useless.